I think there instances where there are "wins" by community groups working on permits, despite the problems with enforcement.
I know a community group in Madison, WI, that used a comment on an aluminum foundry's construction permit to raise issues about proposed chlorine emissions. Lo and behold, the permit application was withdawn and the company is proposing a process that does not use chlorine. There may later be enforcement issues about other pollutants, but the chlorine issue, I think, was a win
You are undoubtable right about enforcement being bad. I don't know anyone who is satisfied with enforcement. I spend a great deal of time on that issue myself.
I think also that it must be remembered that enforcement depends a great deal on what's in the permit. A group that successfully gets a continuous emissions monitor required in a permit is going to be in much better shape if the facility later violates. CEMs are hard to beat.
With Title V permits, the permit may become THE enforceable document. Many states have included "permit shields" that make the permit the law as far as compliance goes, and if something does not make it into the permit, or is mis-stated, you've got a real problem.
I don't, at any rate, believe that the type of information I am arguing in favor of should include enforcement. I've just talked about permits because that's what I am most familiar with.
On the enforcement side, I think we need the same kind of information.
We need access to compliance data in a timely manner, so we can figure out priorities. We also need this information to figure out if local problems are because facilities are not in compliance, or because the rules governing the facilities are not strong enough to protect us, even when they are obeyed.
We also need to know all the enforceable conditions that a facility is subject to. Wouldn't hurt to also have some case studies of how citizens documented compliance problems at a facility and got some action.
We definitely need to know where to go with information. It's common for me to hear the state agency say they are unaware of a problem. Later I find that citizens have been complaining for years, but to the local city hall or village council.
This, too, is an area where knowing about agency oversight can be important. For instance, when Ohio submitted its State Implementation Plan for air to the EPA, they included a state air nuisance rule. This made the rule federally enforceable, and remarkably the feds have on occasion actually enforced using it.
Process can be important. In Ohio, a certified complaint is a much bigger bother to the state than a phone call to a district office. It's also good documentation that you've done all the things you should, which can be used later in a media battle.
In some sense, we can never win victories by just getting companies to do what they should do. I suppose, at the logical extreme, environmental laws should not be necessary.
But, I can't think of any area of government that runs well without some form of citizen oversight. In the case of environmental protection, I think it is absolutely imperative that we be aggressively involved.
My experience is that industry participates in a big way. I suspect we can too, with a little help from the agency.
I think too that it will make a difference, though it's never going to be easy. There are plenty of good people in EPA, who are happy to the right thing, if they have some cover. We often don't even know they are there, because we lack the information that we help us find them.
A while back I talked to a state permit developer who was reworking a permit that had originally included the wrong level of control. I had submitted comments to that effect. She was very excited and happy because she was knocking 400 tons of allowable NOx off the permit. I'm certain she would have liked to do the permit correctly the first time, but like a sensible person who works for a pro-business agency, she decided to go with what her bosses said would work. Citizen involvement allowed her to do the right thing.
Cynically, I could say she was just a bad person and unwilling to stand up to authority. I'd rather think that she's a potential ally.
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